


Nemesis

by meyari



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Criminal Masterminds, Identity Porn, M/M, Mistaken Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2012-11-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 14:38:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meyari/pseuds/meyari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bruce comes back to Gotham after his seven year journey around the world, he expects that things will have changed. He's changed after all so Gotham will have too. But he discovers that far more has gone wrong during his absence than he thought could have, including the one person he thought would wait forever for him having moved on in strange and unexpected ways.</p>
<p>Tim has changed during his absence, becoming someone completely different from the boy that Bruce fell in love with. Instead of the steadfast ally he expected Bruce now has a perfect nemesis determined to destroy him utterly.</p>
<p>Finding their way back to each other's sides through the maze of lies and mistaken identities threatens to take more time than they have available as another, much more serious, enemy lurks in the background waiting to destroy not just them but all of Gotham as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nemesis

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Blindflower on LJ for her excellent beta work on this story! I did futz with it after she was done so any mistakes are purely mine.
> 
> Also, please go see the accompanying artwork (see [here](http://tee-sama.livejournal.com/23941.html)) created by Tee_sama for this story--it's beautiful and so exactly what I wanted for this story! *squees and flails*

It was funny how someone could live each and every day without knowing that their existence was the reason you lived.

Bruce watched Tim from across the ballroom. The months since his return to Gotham had been filled with his efforts to find an effective way to fight the rampant corruption that filled Gotham from the worst neighborhoods all the way up to the highest levels of society. Between the brutal crime and drug running that haunted the lowest levels of society and the frequent misappropriation of Wayne Industries technology by his employees, Bruce had barely made a difference as Batman. Fortunately, his act as Brucie had apparently convinced everyone that he was nothing more than a dim-witted fool. 

That was a shock. 

He'd assumed that at least one person would have seen straight through his flimsy disguise, if not everyone in Gotham. Several years of debating how to properly deal with crime in school should have given Tim the ability to see through Bruce's behavior. They'd discussed so many times how to hide one's true intentions from the public. Bruce's preference for masks, both literal and behavioral, had always contrasted with Tim's preference for a strong show of force coupled with seductive inducements for people to ignore what was in front of their eyes.

But then perhaps it was completely believable to Timothy Drake that he'd changed this much given how much Tim had changed. Gone was the shy young man who had so hesitantly offered his condolences on the anniversary of Bruce's parents' deaths. No matter how hard he'd tried before Bruce's departure to project strength, Tim had never been successful. Somehow, though, while he was gone Tim had been transformed from the sweet boy Bruce had known. In his place was a suave, sophisticated shark of the ballroom. Tim moved through the crowd with a smile that threatened destruction and a laugh that promised broken knees or perhaps broken necks.

"Brucie," Tim said, the shark teeth impression intensifying as he strode over to shake Bruce's deliberately limp hand. "So good to see you! I didn't expect that you'd attend tonight."

"Like I'd stay away," Bruce laughed, doing his best to put his vapid 'I fried my brain on drugs in India and China' face on. "I heard that Cobblepot throws the best parties in town."

"Depends on how you define 'best'," Tim said with enough innuendo in the word 'best' to make Bruce's idiot penis try to stand up and pay attention. "I prefer more... private adventures."

Bruce laughed as if that was the funniest thing he'd heard. He didn't miss the hurt that appeared and then immediately disappeared in Tim's eyes. 

Tim was still the most beautiful man that Bruce had ever seen, pale skin, black hair and lean limbs hiding his true strength. Seven years hadn't changed Tim so much that Bruce's heart could let him go. They had made so many promises to each other all those years ago only to have them turn to dust now that Bruce was back.

"You always did have the most fun of anyone I knew, Timmy," Bruce said with a bit more honesty than was good for either of them. 

He at least managed to say it with Brucie's voice. 

Memories of time spent debating crime, punishment and justice in the Exeter library, voices kept low so that Oliver Queen wouldn't come and harass Tim yet again, haunted Bruce's mind. 

The shark smile faded for a moment as if Tim was remembering those moments too. Or perhaps it was the time they'd spent together in bed, exploring everything that two young men could do together when they had insufficient supervision and more than ample money. Nights spent getting sweatily exhausted together mixed with memories of the sheer brilliance of Tim's mind to make Bruce heart, and groin, ache for what they used to have together.

The moment faded immediately as Tim straightened up as if remembering where they were. Too many eyes were watching them for either of them to let down their guards for more than a moment.

"Of course I do," Tim said in his shark's voice, shark teeth flashing at Bruce like a threat. "Enjoy the party, Brucie."

"You too, Timmy," Bruce replied as Tim walked away without waiting for a reply.

As Tim resumed his progress across the ballroom, threatening everyone he spoke to with his sheer presence, Bruce finished off his sparkling cider pretending to be champagne and wandered off to follow Tim's reverse path. To his amusement, the vast majority of the people he spoke to on his supposed way to find more champagne asked if he was okay. Blinking his eyes in confusion at them in ninety-seven percent of the cases prompted them to amplify with a question about his talk with Tim. Even Cobblepot fell for it.

"Oh no, I'm fine," Bruce said with a little sway to convey that he was too drunk or stoned to realize that he might have been in danger. "Timmy and I go way back. We went to school together you know. Such a bright kid. He moved three grades ahead of everyone else his age."

"Ah, really?" Cobblepot asked, his cigarette holder jumping in his mouth as if he was doing his best not to chew on it. "Hadn't known that."

"Yeah, Timmy was always the smartest person I knew," Bruce said brightly enough that he felt like someone (Alfred) was going to smack him for being too over the top with his acting. "Well, there was Lex Luthor but Timmy and Lex didn't get along so well. Something about Ollie Queen but I never did hear the whole story there."

Cobblepot's eyes had gone wide enough that Bruce was certain that Tim was making his way back across the room. Bruce blinked at Cobblepot and patted his shoulder as if concerned about the rotund little man. The gesture of concern made Cobblepot start and clamp his teeth down on his cigarette holder.

"Are you all right?" Bruce asked. "You look kind of..." he gestured with the empty champagne glass, "I don't know, startled?"

"Ahahaha, perfectly all right, Brucie my boy," Cobblepot said with a forced sort of cheerfulness. "Just didn't realize that you all went to school together."

"Yeah," Bruce said with mock fondness for his old school. "It was pretty nice. Anyway, great party. I'm going to go find some more of your great champagne and see who'd like to dance."

"Enjoy," Cobblepot said. As soon as Bruce turned his back and looked around for the buffet table as if he'd forgotten where it was, Cobblepot snorted. "Idiot. Can't imagine how you managed to keep up with them."

Bruce pretended that he hadn't heard a word as he meandered off towards the buffet. The champagne was horrible but it didn't take much work to switch glasses for one of the sparkling ciders. He almost knocked over a full tray of drinks in the process of doing it only to have Tim appear at his elbow to pluck the glass out of his hand.

"I do think you've had enough, Brucie," Tim said in a voice that was so much like his old self that Bruce wanted to scream. He plucked a cider glass from a different tray, passing it to Bruce. Something tiny fizzed in the bottom of the glass for a few moments, prompting Bruce to wonder incredulously if Tim was trying to drug him. Some of the drugs available on the street were incredible nasty while others were relatively benign, only inducing peaceful sleep in the addict. "Try the cider instead."

"Oh, no thanks, Timmy," Bruce said with an exaggerated look of disgust. "Never touch the stuff. I mean, what's the point if you're not going to get a little buzz from your bubbly?"

The way Tim's jaw tightened made the server slip away murmuring apologies under his breath. Bruce could see sorrow in Tim's eyes, well hidden under the shark exterior but it was still there. He reached out and patted Tim's shoulder, doing his best to hide his surprise at the amount of muscle he found under Tim's perfectly tailored tux.

"You were always a good guy, Timmy," Bruce said as if he was hitting that maudlin stage of drunkenness. "Always were. Missed you while I was gone."

Tim let out a long slow breath that shook more than Bruce would have thought possible for the person Tim had become. "I missed you too, Brucie, but I really do think you've had enough for one night."

When Bruce waved one hand aimlessly as if to disagree, Tim nodded to Cobblepot. Moments later Bruce found himself firmly but politely escorted to the door. 

Alfred was already there with the limo, waiting for Bruce. His expression was as stiffly disapproving as Alfred would allow himself in public, especially when Bruce had to be helped into the back of the limo. Only once the door was closed and they'd traveled several blocks away from Cobblepot's mansion did Bruce sigh and drop the act.

"Hmm, I take it that the party was a success, Master Bruce?" Alfred asked. His expression in the rear view mirror was much warmer.

"Limited, Alfred," Bruce said. "Tim Drake was there."

"Was he, sir?" Alfred asked or perhaps encouraged.

"He's... changed, Alfred," Bruce murmured.

"I was not the only person who missed you during your absence, Master Bruce," Alfred said. 

The slant of his eyebrows conveyed the message that Bruce had no one but himself to blame for the dramatic change in Timothy Jackson Drake. It was one of those uncomfortable truths that Alfred had always been so skilled at delivering. Bruce nodded. He truly did have no one else to blame. Before he'd left on his training mission Tim had said that he would wait for Bruce. 

Coming back to find that his long absence with no communication had gotten him declared dead had been a shock. How much trouble would it have been for Bruce to send a postcard? One postcard, one message, one sign that Tim wasn't alone in a world that had never cared whether he lived or died; that was all it would have taken.

"So I see, Alfred," Bruce sighed. "So I see."

***

Tim snarled as Batman burst through the skylight of his third most important warehouse. 

The party at Cobblepot's mansion had been a qualified success. Granted, he'd had to expend a fair amount of energy dealing with Bruce's unfortunate presence but he'd still managed to make the deals he needed once he'd gotten Bruce out of the way. Several people who had been wavering in their support for Tim's plans had finally succumbed after only minor threatening. Tim hadn't even had to spend that much money to ensure the truly moral people fell into their assigned places in his plans.

"Nemesis!" Batman snarled as he kicked, punched and tore his way through Tim's workers.

"Run!" Tim bellowed in the darker, deeper voice that he used when wearing the blank black Nemesis mask.

His people did as they had been ordered, darting away from Batman and Tim to disappear into the night. This shipment of drugs was inevitably lost given Batman's highly unwelcome presence. He'd become more and more of a problem in the last couple of months, preventing Tim from locating the people behind the shipments of hallucinogenic that Crane had been dumping into the water system. Several times now he'd disrupted Tim's efforts to determine who was behind the massive corruption that haunted Gotham. 

Even after he'd removed Crane from his position as a doctor in Arkham with the simple expedient of getting the man certified insane through a heavy dosage of his own hallucinogen, the drugs kept coming along with the steady flow of criminals from other places. Someone knew where they came from. There had to be a person in Gotham who had the secret to their source and their purpose. Tim would find him or her no matter how hard Batman attempted to stop him.

All of his work in cultivating a relationship with Henry Ducard would go to waste if he didn't stop Batman from interfering. Tim was certain that Ducard was up to no good but his aims seemed to coincide with Tim's plans for Gotham, though Ducard was sadly far more willing to use extreme violence than Tim was. There was always the possibility that Ducard or someone more highly placed in his organization could give him the clue he needed to eliminate the flow of drugs so it was vital to deal with Batman immediately and severely.

"They won't bring aid in time, Nemesis," Batman growled in a voice slightly darker than Tim's.

"I don't need aid to deal with you, Batman," Tim snorted. Really. Aid? "My enterprises require people to succeed. They can't do their jobs if you arrest them."

"You can't direct them in jail," Batman said somewhat less confidently.

Tim laughed, the carefree, highly amused laugh that he hadn't used outside of the mask since Bruce had been declared dead. Really, Batman was an utter imbecile. Tim owned Gotham, from the highest levels all the way down to the street crime. After Bruce's death (and leaving aside his return because the husk of a man that had come back was not and could never be Tim's Bruce) Tim had decided that it was time to make good on their long-ago dreams to clean up Gotham's crime.

Perhaps if Bruce had returned as the warrior he'd intended to be Tim could have thrown aside his disguise as Gotham's dark ruler. Perhaps. It hardly mattered. He would find the beating heart behind the never-ending stream of crime that haunted Gotham and he would tear it out with his bare hands. Someone was manipulating them. Tim had seen it years ago in Bruce's parent's deaths and the terrible way the investigation was botched. He'd seen it later when his mother and then his father were murdered for asking too many questions about why things were the way they were.

If only criminals were allowed to ask questions then Tim would become the greatest criminal that Gotham had ever seen.

"I own the police, Batman," Tim purred. "I can run the city as effectively in prison as I do out here."

Batman snarled, one hand swinging towards Tim in a roundhouse punch that was fast enough and powerful enough to do serious damage if it were allowed to connect. 

Tim countered with an aikido move that sent Batman spinning away. He didn't need to continue this for very long. Another two minutes of sparring with Batman should suffice to give his people time to escape. 

Of course, Tim knew that he couldn't afford to battle Batman terribly long. The man was huge and quite powerful, everything that Bruce had wanted to be when he left. If Batman had had an ally watching his back then Tim would have had to implement different plans but for now it wasn't necessary. Simple delay coupled with a timely escape should suffice.

His Aikido was countered with an interesting mixture of Tai Chi and boxing. Tim smirked behind his mask, switching to Tae Kwan Do and the acrobatics that he'd studied as a young man. 

To his surprise, the combination made Batman stare for one and a half very long seconds. A snort of amusement sent Batman at him again. 

Three nerve strikes later, each destined for failure given the carefully engineered armor under Tim's suit, Tim used another Aikido move to send Batman flying straight into the booby trap his men had been carefully avoiding for the last month.

It snapped tight around Batman, holding him upside down with one leg twisted at a decidedly uncomfortable angle despite his efforts to break free. 

Tim clucked his tongue as he strolled over to smile down at Batman's snarling face. The machine clearly wouldn't be able to hold Batman for terribly long. The gears were already creaking as Batman hauled against them. His eyes were dark with anger as he glared up at Tim.

"Such a pity," Tim said. "I had high hopes that our battles might be somewhat challenging."

"What do you want?" Batman demanded.

"Why, nothing more than to leave," Tim said. He laughed at the way Batman gaped at him. "Really now, why do you disbelieve everything I say? I rarely lie, Batman. Gotham is mine. My men are more important to me than one small shipment of product that can be easily replaced. I do own the police and there's nothing you can do about that."

"Not Gordon," Batman said in a tone that was an odd mixture of hope and snarl. "You don't own Gordon."

"No, not Gordon," Tim agreed. He smiled and knew that it showed on the dark surface of his mask. "But that's all right. He won't be in the way too much longer. Neither will you. Don't worry. It should be quick and relatively painless."

Batman's grunts and shouts echoed down the hallway as Tim slipped away. It was a pity about the shipment but he had warned the supplier of the drugs that some optimistic fool had decided to try and take him down. 

There was a tone to Batman's grunts that sent Tim's mind back to nights at Exeter spent in Bruce's narrow bed but that probably had more to do with seeing Bruce earlier in the evening than it did with Batman. Any grunt would bring those perfect nights back right now.

His car was parked exactly where he'd left it. Tim pulled off the Nemesis mask and drove away. Precisely three minutes after his departure he triggered the self-destruct system built into the warehouse. It was a pity to lose the location but that's all it was. There were other warehouses and other shipments.

Tim was quite certain that Batman would have escaped by that time. It might have been close enough for Batman to have gotten scorched but there was little doubt in his mind that he would escape.

The booby trap wasn't that advanced nor did it have any lethal additions to it that would have eliminated Batman when he struggled free. At most Tim had a slightly singed Bat who was even more determined to stop Tim's 'reign of terror' over the city. 

That little set of insults from the fight before last made Tim's fingers tighten on the steering wheel. Crime had fallen dramatically since Tim took over. Murders were down. Rapes were down. Muggings had almost disappeared in all neighborhoods other than the very worst where people had no choice other than to steal to survive. Granted, organized crime had jumped dramatically but that was quite deliberate on Tim's part. In a couple of years they would be so centralized that Tim would be able to eliminate them in one fell swoop. All Batman was doing was delaying Tim from cleaning Gotham up for good.

"You were supposed to be by my side," Tim whispered to Bruce. "This would have been so much easier if you weren't gone."

He sighed and shook his head. It didn't matter. His Bruce, the real Bruce who had been so brilliant and passionate at Exeter, was gone. Long gone; he'd been replaced by a drunken buffoon who didn't even remember that Tim had loved him with all his heart. 

Someday, after he'd cleaned up Gotham, Tim was going to find the people who had destroyed his Bruce. When he did they would learn the pain that they'd inflicted on Tim.

***

"Ah, I see you decided to play with fire tonight, Master Bruce," Alfred said as Bruce hauled himself out of the Tumbler. "I do hope that you put the matches away once you were done."

"Nemesis blew up the warehouse that I was in, Alfred," Bruce said.

The pain in his voice or maybe on his face prompted Alfred away from the monitors and towards Bruce. His knee was going to be a problem. When he'd been thrown Bruce had assumed that he would have a chance to twist and then push away from the wall but Nemesis' trap had caught him with one leg out of position.

"Broken or dislocated, Master Bruce?" Alfred asked brusquely. He put himself under Bruce's shoulder, helping him to the infirmary in the cave.

"Sprained at least," Bruce admitted. "Possibly dislocated though not severely. I can put weight on it."

Alfred tisked in almost exactly the same way that Nemesis had. 

It didn't bother Bruce half as much as Nemesis' laughter. When he laughed he sounded so much like Tim, not the current Tim but the old Tim who had been the light of Bruce's life. He knew that it was Tim behind the Nemesis mask but somehow Bruce didn't want to admit it. His Tim wouldn't do things like that. Nemesis was someone else, someone different from Tim.

Except of course for the fact that Tim was still Nemesis even when he wasn't wearing the mask. Tonight's party had proven that. Everything kind, sweet and gentle in Tim had died a long time ago. Bruce couldn't help but be happy that he hadn't been here to see it. He thought that it would have destroyed his heart and soul to see Tim go down this path. It was destroying him simply seeing the aftermath of Tim's descent into darkness.

"Mmm, I dare say that you've very badly sprained it, Master Bruce," Alfred said as he carefully checked and then wrapped Bruce's knee. "Do you have a plan to explain the injury?"

"I was seen to be too drunk to function tonight, Alfred," Bruce said. "I slipped on the stairs once I got home and sprained it. Simple."

Alfred sighed and nodded. His expression was sad as he helped Bruce back up to his feet. Bruce could read the whole lecture in Alfred's always eloquent posture. This didn't need to be. He could find a different way to save Gotham from the crime destroying it. If Bruce truly wanted to make things better then there was the possibility of philanthropy and ensuring proper education and job opportunities existed for the people of Gotham.

It was an argument that they'd already had several times.

Bruce's counter arguments that Nemesis siphoned off all philanthropic donations for his own purposes was probably clear on his face. The desperate need to make a real, physical difference certainly carried across in the tightness of his grip on Alfred's shoulder. His refusal to even grunt in pain as they made their way to the elevator back to the Manor said that Bruce would not give up, not even for his oldest and most precious of friends. Or for the man who at one time had held his heart.

"I think it would be best if you took to your bed, Master Bruce," Alfred said with a nod that he wouldn't force Bruce to say the same old things out loud. "I'll bring you up a bit of dinner before you sleep."

"Thank you, Alfred," Bruce said with hopefully enough gratitude that Alfred knew just how much Bruce appreciated him.

"You're quite welcome, Master Bruce," Alfred replied. "Though a bit more care with your person would go a long way to thanking me properly."

Bruce grinned. Alfred smiled at him, eyes wrinkled with amusement and affection. 

Once Alfred left the bedroom Bruce limped into the bathroom to clean himself up. With the wrapping on his knee it wasn't possible to take a proper shower but Bruce did his best to remove the smell of smoke and burning chemicals from his body and hair. By the time he was done Alfred was there with Bruce's sleep clothes and a tray filled with food.

"I would recommend taking some pain medication, Master Bruce," Alfred said as he pulled the covers up and placed the tray in Bruce's lap. "I took the liberty of bringing some of your more powerful medication for you."

"No, Alfred," Bruce said. "You know I don't want them."

The annoyed look was as expected as the tired sigh. Rather than taking the pills with him, Alfred set them on the bedside table before departing. 

Bruce ate, going over the night's battle for every mistake he'd made. There were quite a few of them. He should have never assumed that he would be able to bounce back from the throw. More importantly, he should have realized that Nemesis valued his employees more highly than the drugs that he brought in.

Somehow he hadn't expected that though. The criminals he'd encountered during his travels never cared about their partners. To a man, they had considered each other to be expendable at best and competition at worst. Even Ra's and Ducard had treated their men that way. It was distinctly odd that Nemesis didn't.

"I wonder if they have greater purpose than just being workers," Bruce mused once he was done eating. "If he has plans for them then it would make sense for him to protect them."

His knee ached enough that Bruce didn't get up to put the tray on the table in his room. The bedside table on the other side of his bed was good enough. Bruce turned the lights off only to lie in bed while staring at the ceiling. Several bats fluttered outside, making shadows dance across the ceiling in ways that brought back all his fears of bats.

Bruce closed his eyes and breathed deeply. The meditation he had learned in India and Tibet with his friend Henry Ducard and the League of Shadows calmed his fears and allowed his body to relax until he was on the edge of sleep. He allowed his plans to drift away. The party and Tim's shark smile drifted into his mind. His breath caught in ways that Bruce had nearly forgotten after so long away from Tim's side. In his mind he allowed himself to focus on the way Tim's hair fell around his face, just long enough to grip if anyone would dare. The quick flicker of Tim's tongue against his lip, shocking pink against paler lips, made Bruce groan and shift under the covers.

"Tim," Bruce moaned as his hand drifted down to his rapidly hardening erection.

He tried to force his mind back to Exeter, to the night that Tim had showed up with a tube of KY and a box of condoms. Tim had been so nervous and yet Bruce had been the one to fumble through everything until Tim had pushed him onto his back so that he could settle down on top of Bruce. The memory made Bruce begin to stroke himself but the image in his mind wasn't the Tim of all those years ago.

It was the Tim of today, Nemesis, Timothy Drake, the man who ruled Gotham with an iron fist. Bruce gasped as his fantasy shifted to Batman and Nemesis, to Bruce strapped down and Nemesis riding him while laughing his carefree laugh. Bruce could almost feel Tim's warm heat wrapped around him. The fingers pinching his nipple were slender and strong, not Bruce's blunt fingertips. Grunts filled the air while memory supplied the gasping moans that Tim always made as he approached an orgasm.

"Tim!" Bruce shouted as he came over his hand. "Ahhh, hell. Tim…"

He shuddered as reality forced the fantasy away. That would never happen; could never happen. As Bruce cleaned himself up he cursed at his weak will. He only hurt his ability to fight effectively against Nemesis by allowing these fantasies to exist. Tomorrow, after he'd slept, Bruce would have to spend some time ensuring that he properly separated Tim from Nemesis or more accurately, locked his feelings for both sides of his former lover's personality away inside his mind.

No matter what, Bruce couldn't afford to show weakness to Tim.

***

"Interesting," Tim murmured as the evening news reporters laughed about Bruce's antics stumbling around on crutches. "I suppose he actually was that drunk last night."

The video of Bruce attempting to cut the ribbon for the new children's wing at the hospital, appropriately enough named for his dear departed father Thomas Wayne, while balancing on crutches should have been funny. The anchors obviously thought that it was hilarious. Their commentary about how much good Bruce was doing now that he'd come back from the dead had a faintly caustic edge. Tim could all but hear the unspoken comments that spending money was all that Bruce Wayne was good for.

"Idiots," Tim snarled as he turned off the TV. "He's not that stupid. He never was!"

"Who isn't, sir?" Mrs. Mac asked as she came to take Tim's dinner plates away.

"Bruce," Tim said with a snort and impatient wave of his hand at the TV. "He apparently sprained his knee last night when he got back to the Manor."

Mrs. Mac tisked and shook her head. "He was such a bright boy. Horrible what drugs and drink can do to a person. Will you need me tonight or are you going out?"

The question was so much more than a request for some extra time off. Tim remembered the exact day, the hour, that Mrs. Mac stopped asking for time off. It had been after his parents died at the hands of an assassin, which happened all of a week after her husband had been murdered in the street by gang members who needed a getaway car. That day, she had taken Tim's hand and told him that he would never be alone again if he didn't wish to be. She'd kept the promise.

Tim smiled at her. "What would I ever do without you, Mrs. Mac?"

"Spend a great deal more time stitching up your own wounds and not eating well," Mrs. Mac said with a grin that made Tim laugh.

"I have plans to make tonight," Tim said, answering her question because she had one eyebrow raised with the 'not too old to spank' expression. "After losing the warehouse I'll need to adjust how I bring the product in for a while."

"All right," Mrs. Mac said. "Don't stay up too late. You have a big meeting with the gang leaders tomorrow at 10:00 am. I won't be gentle about getting you up."

She left with the dishes before Tim could stop laughing. He shook his head and spent the next three hours restructuring how he handled the drugs that were being shipped into Gotham. If he could just find out who was behind it all Tim knew that he could stop at least half of the crime in Gotham. Unfortunately, Batman had completely destroyed his plans to discover the next link in the chain last night. Showing off how efficient and secure his system was couldn't help but be a failure when Batman destroyed the warehouse and scared off his men. Worse still, Tim knew that Ducard would be coming to visit Gotham soon; they'd corresponded about the visit often enough over the last couple of months. He'd hoped to impress the man with the progress he'd made in securing the city. All of that was gone after last night's explosion.

A dozen phone calls through secure lines and a couple of calls through highly unsecure tapped lines got things back in order. By the time he was done it was midnight and Mrs. Mac had gone to bed. Tim wandered through the house, occasionally looking out the window at Wayne Manor. No surprise, Bruce appeared to have stayed home tonight too. The lights were on in his bedroom.

Tim wondered for a moment why Bruce hadn't claimed the master suite when he returned. He shook his head as he smiled at his foolishness. No matter how much Bruce had changed, Tim didn't think that he would ever lose his borderline obsessive worship of his parents. Bruce would never claim their room as his. The thought of Bruce's Manor, the many empty halls and rooms that only Alfred ever saw, made Tim lick his lips. Alfred had given Tim a master key years ago, shortly after Bruce's departure. Many times during Bruce's absence Tim had gone next door to wander through the Manor, imagining living there by Bruce's side.

"I could still visit," Tim murmured. "I could."

His breath caught in his throat, snagged on a knot of emotion that took Tim a moment to sort out. It was Bruce. Bruce. He'd gone so long without Bruce and then realized that Bruce was dead. That he had to be gone. But Bruce was back, alive, whole, only not truly whole. His mind was gone but that made no sense! While drugs could have terrible effects on the mind they generally had far worse effects on the body first. Bruce didn't show the physical signs of addiction. He was, however, obviously a drunkard and a very serious one at that.

"Except that he didn't smell of alcohol," Tim whispered as the previous night's encounter abruptly sharpened in his mind.

The detail had been lost in a wash of pain and yearning. Tim had been so focused on keeping his emotions hidden from view that he hadn't consciously registered that Bruce hadn't smelled of alcohol. His breath had actually been sweet when Tim shook his hand. The color of his eyes hadn't been jaundiced at all, no bloodshot eyes, nothing to indicate that he'd been drinking at all other than the exaggerated movements and slight sloppiness of his speech.

"That..." Tim frowned at the Manor, his fingers running restlessly over the face of his watch as he reviewed every instant of time he'd spent in Bruce's presence since Bruce's return. "Why would he fake being a drunk?"

It didn't make sense.

Unless Tim was missing something major. He stepped back from the window and began to pace. Movement always had helped him think better. It was something that Bruce had taught him in school before they became lovers. Sometimes you simply needed to get the body moving to help the mind fit the pieces together. Tim deliberately didn't think of anything as he moved back and forth across the room.

"Not enough," Tim muttered.

His gym wasn't as complete as he would like. The ballroom that he'd transformed for training had mirrors all across the wall and heavy black velvet drapes across all the windows. In between he'd put in a mat thick enough for the heaviest of falls, weight equipment and a treadmill that could go faster than Tim at a full sprint even after all his efforts to be faster. Rather than get on it, Tim stripped off his jacket and shirt, kicked off his shoes and went to the mats. Karate kata flowed into Tae Kwan Do into Judo into acrobatic moves that he was still working to adapt into an effective martial arts technique. By the time he was sweating Tim's mind felt several sizes larger.

"He's hiding something," Tim grunted as he worked through a series of high kicks aimed at an imaginary Batman's jaw.

The imaginary Batman went down but his mental path didn't open so Tim imagined him back up again. Punches, nerve strikes, everything Tim could think of, worked his body as he tried to let his mind fly freely. Tim stumbled and froze as a series of thoughts clicked together in a strange, horrifying new pattern.

First, someone was shipping hallucinogenic drugs into Gotham in an effort to poison the water supply. Fact. Tim had gained control over the effort and blocked it, mostly successfully though the flow continued. He'd only been able to restrict the flow, not stop it entirely.

Second, the source of those drugs was the Far East, China or Tibet. Also fact. Tim had verified that though he hadn't been able to determine the true location of the manufacturer.

Third, Bruce had just spent seven years in the Far East, traveling and presumably frying his brain in India, China and Tibet. Very much a fact if one listened to Bruce, perhaps not a fact if one studied his actual person. Tim's heart beat faster than the physical activity could explain.

Fourth, shortly after Bruce's return from the Far East, Batman had begun to attack Tim and all his ventures. Tim assumed that Batman was a vigilante but his understanding of criminal enterprises spoke of greater knowledge than most vigilantes would have.

Fifth, Batman's weaponry and suit were entirely too advanced for an average vigilante. He had to be supported by a very large budget, probably by a large staff as well. Inventing his devices was something that would have taken years of effort. Even stealing them from Wayne Industries' R&D department would have taken a significant effort. Many of Tim's best devices had been purchased through Ducard's League and they had apparently been in operation for generations.

"Supposition," Tim whispered as he scooped up a towel and wiped the sweat from his face with shaking fingers. "Batman is not a vigilante. He is in fact the agent of the person or people sending the drugs to Gotham. His aim is to replace me and to take Gotham down as thoroughly as possible. Accurate or not? Unknown at this time."

The fifth and final thought was the one that Tim did not want to articulate, even in the privacy of his own head. Bruce could not be the person behind all of this. He couldn't be. No matter how badly Bruce had fried his brain or how much he had changed over the seven years he'd been gone, Tim could not believe that Bruce would ever attack Gotham. Perhaps he'd fallen in with the wrong sort. Maybe they were taking advantage of him, drugging him or otherwise controlling him. It was possible. Batman was almost certainly well funded and the only source of money in Gotham that Tim didn't control was Bruce Wayne's fortune.

"If Batman is using you, Bruce," Tim growled as he left his clothes behind to stride upstairs to his bedroom to change, "I will end his life in the most painful ways known to man. No matter what you've become I won't allow you to be used this way."

***

Despite his injured knee, Bruce headed for the stairs to the basement. He couldn't patrol for a day or two but that didn't mean that he couldn't work to stop Tim's, Nemesis' activities. Truthfully, Bruce needed to spend some time on the computers. There was something about Nemesis' crimes that didn't make sense. He had equipment that he shouldn't have had, that was far beyond what was available anywhere but in WI's R&D Department. It had been bothering him ever since his return but he'd never had the time to study the data in depth. Crutches weren't convenient but they did give him an excuse to spend time in research instead of training.

"Bruce."

Bruce nearly fell over as Tim's voice called up the main hallway. When he turned Tim was standing at the other end of the hallway. He was barely visible in the dimly lit hallway but even at that distance Bruce could read a level of hesitation that was quite out of character with the Tim that Bruce now knew. It was completely in keeping with the Tim he used to know.

"Tim? What in the world? How did you get in?" Bruce asked.

He deliberately kept his gait with the crutches moderately awkward, not as bad as it had been at the hospital but still not perfectly steady. Bruce had no idea when Tim had slipped into the Manor. There was a good possibility of his having seen Bruce moving smoothly a few moments ago. Tim walked slowly towards Bruce, his expression intent despite the hesitation screaming from his posture. They met halfway up the hallway, close to the servant's stairway that led almost directly to Bruce's suite. Tim brushed his fingers over Bruce's elbow, his old shy smile quirking his lips.

"After you left Alfred gave me a master key," Tim said. "He invited me to come over whenever I wanted to. I saw that you'd injured yourself so I thought I'd come see how you are."

It was his Tim, the real Tim, not the shark-like Tim who wore that damnable Nemesis mask. Bruce shivered and licked his lips as he tried to force himself back into character. He had to be Brucie, not Bruce. A shrug and wry smile made Tim chuckle as he stepped even closer to Bruce. That put Tim so close that Bruce could smell sweat and the cedar hangers that Tim obviously hung his coat on. Worse, he could feel the heat of Tim's body drawing Bruce closer still.

"I'm all right," Bruce replied. "Alfred insists that I stay off my leg for a couple of days even though I hate the crutches."

"I'm glad that it's not too serious," Tim murmured.

His fingers trailed up Bruce's arm to his shoulder, resting there for a moment before ghosting across Bruce's jawline. The feather-like touch made Bruce shudder. He couldn't remember how long it had been since anyone had touched him that way, possibly since the night he left for his training. Even with his eyes half-shut Bruce saw Tim's answering shudder as well as the way he licked his lips. Silence echoed in the hallway as they stared at each other. Tim's fingers settled almost directly on top of one of Bruce's bruises, this time causing a wince that made Tim frown.

"Sore?" Tim asked.

"Just a bruise," Bruce answered. "I ah, didn't fall terribly gracefully when I tripped on the stairs."

"If I asked Alfred would he say that you should be in bed instead of wandering the hallways?" Tim asked, this time with enough amusement that Bruce couldn't help but grin.

"Almost certainly," Bruce chuckled. "And would Mrs. Mac be annoyed at you for wandering about when you should be sleeping?"

"Absolutely," Tim laughed. "She… worries."

Bruce nodded. His heart dropped as Tim backed off half a step. "So does Alfred."

They stared at each other for a long moment. He could see dozens of questions in Tim's eyes but none of them reached his lips. 

Bruce had so many questions of his own but they all revolved around why and how Tim had changed so much. When Tim took another half step Bruce reached out and caught his sleeve. The sudden movement combined with Tim's continuing backwards overbalanced Bruce and nearly toppled him into Tim's arms.

"You… Sorry," Bruce whispered as Tim stared at him. Their height difference remained though now Tim was only a few inches shorter than him rather than a full head shorter. "I, ah, well, it's good to see you. Away from parties, you know. You… seem different here. Than there."

"There are certain expectations of me," Tim murmured. His arms wrapped around Bruce's back.

"I know," Bruce agreed. "Me too."

The kiss seemed to come from nowhere. Bruce realized as his lips met Tim's that they had both leaned in at the same time. This was the one thing that he'd ached for ever since his departure. 

His moan prompted a needy growl from Tim along with a firm shove that sent Bruce's back into the wall. Tim caught the crutches when Bruce nearly dropped them, keeping them propped under Bruce's armpits. When Tim's leg slid between Bruce's legs it brushed against his knee, prompting a grunt that made Tim pull back.

"Sorry," Tim panted.

"Knee," Bruce growled as he pulled Tim back into the kiss.

Bruce swallowed Tim's breathless laugh, held him close enough that Bruce thought that he would be able to hold onto the memory for the future. Every flick of Tim's tongue, every clench of Bruce's fingers in Tim's coat made them groan. The kiss seemed to last forever. When Tim finally tugged back far enough that he could breathe, his cheeks were red and his lips were swollen.

"I missed you," Bruce whispered before he could stop the words.

"I was right there," Tim whispered back, his voice hitching on 'there'.

"No," Bruce moaned as he hugged Tim tightly. "It wasn't you. Not this you. Not the Tim I knew."

Tim hugged back, hitting a dozen bruises that Bruce refused to acknowledge. His crutches dug into Bruce's sides painfully as well but none of it was enough to prompt Bruce to let Tim go. Eventually the pain in Bruce's knee reminded him that he was supposed to be Brucie, not Bruce Wayne. When Bruce finally let go Tim smiled at him so tenderly that Bruce's breath caught in his throat.

"You're hurt," Tim said. "Don't deny it. I can tell."

Bruce made a face but nodded that Tim was right. "I really should have taken my pain medication before I came downstairs but I didn't expect to be this long."

Tim laughed, low and amused. "Upstairs. Come on. You should be resting anyway."

When Bruce looked at the stairs and groaned Tim laughed more loudly. He knew that he should be worried about Tim following him upstairs but Bruce couldn't bring himself to actually do it. It was Tim, his Tim, the real Tim that Bruce had missed so much. Climbing the stairs without using his injured knee was as much of a struggle as always. Tim didn't comment, didn't laugh, didn't do anything other than follow Bruce to his suite and then guide Bruce to the bed. He knew exactly where the bathroom was, how much water to bring. The thought of Tim wandering through Bruce's bedroom while he was gone was definitely going to add dimension to his fantasies.

Bruce pretended not to notice Tim's too-intent study of the little bottle of pain pills from Asia.

"Two," Bruce said when Tim only gave him one.

"All right," Tim replied. His hand shook ever so faintly as he gave the second pill to Bruce. "Robe off?"

"Definitely."

Bruce had forgotten that he only had an old white tank top and threadbare sleep pants underneath the robe. He was reminded of it as soon as the robe came off. Tim studied the many bruises covering Bruce's arms, chest and stomach. There seemed little point to pretending that the bruises had come from falling on the stairs. The marks around Bruce's wrists were far too clearly from having been restrained. As Bruce eased back into bed, Tim pulled the covers over him and then gently sat next to Bruce. His lips had gone so thin as to nearly disappear.

"I have… always loved you," Tim said.

The words came as a surprise when Bruce had been expecting accusations and heated questions. Bruce curled his fingers around Tim's hand. Maybe this wouldn't go as poorly as he'd expected. Tim ran his fingers over the inside of Bruce's wrist, finding every single scar that he'd gathered over his time away. They settled on the oldest scar, the one that Bruce had made just a week after Tim's arrival at Exeter when the grief over his parents' death had been too much.

"I never broke my promise," Bruce whispered as he put one hand on top of Tim's. The drugs were taking effect so his hand was awkward and leaden despite how precious the memory of Tim's salvation was. "I'm still here, Tim."

"I know," Tim whispered back. "So am I, Bruce. If you ever need anything, anything at all, don't hesitate to ask. You have no idea how much I would do for you."

"I'm… okay," Bruce said as the drugs and late hour conspired with the safety he'd always felt in Tim's presence to drag him down to sleep. "I'm okay."

***

Tim stared at Bruce and counted his breaths until he was entirely certain that Bruce was out. Then he pulled the covers back so that he could examine every single one of the injuries that Batman had inflicted on Bruce. Ligature marks wrapped around his wrists. His forearms were covered with defensive injuries as though Bruce had tried and failed to ward off a vicious beating. They extended up his arms and onto his chest. So many bruises layered over healing cuts layered over scars; Bruce was being tortured into obedience.

"Tortured, addicted to drugs, kept three quarters drunk and incompetent," Tim whispered as he covered Bruce up again and then noted down the medication that Bruce was on. 

He was tempted to take pictures of Bruce's injuries so that the police could intervene but Tim knew perfectly well how futile that would be. Even Jim Gordon lacked the power to save Bruce from Batman. Only Tim could do it and that salvation could not come through the corrupt Gotham Police Department.

"I will save you," Tim whispered as he slipped out of Bruce's room and down the hallway.

He slipped out of the manor the same way that he had slipped in, avoiding Alfred's hallway in the hope that he wouldn't wake the old man. If Tim found that Alfred was being abused in the same fashion as Bruce, Tim knew that nothing short of a bloodbath would satisfy his need for vengeance. Of course, if Batman was keeping Bruce as his abused sexual submissive then Tim was relatively certain that he would end up being the highest mass murderer that the world had ever known. For Bruce to be tortured so severely that he gave up his dominance would be a crime beyond belief.

"Mrs. Mac?" Tim said as he knocked on her door.

"Tim?"

Her sleepy voice was close enough to permission to enter for Tim to slip inside. He sat on the edge of her bed and then found himself curling up so that his head ended up in her lap. Mrs. Mac frowned and petted his hair just as she had so many years ago when his parents were murdered. Only once he stopped shaking did she prod him into sitting up. The look in her eyes was as fierce as the rage in Tim's heart.

"What happened, Tim?" Mrs. Mac asked. "Why are you so upset?"

"Bruce," Tim said. He had to stop and swallow down the lump in his throat. "Bruce is… probably… being abused, Mrs. Mac. I went over tonight because of the new reports of him on crutches. He's, he's covered in bruises. There are ligature marks around his wrists, he's got defensive bruises all over his arms. There are layers upon layers of scars on his arms and torso as if he's been tortured. He…"

"Who?" Mrs. Mac asked with all the ferocity that she'd used that time when he came home with a black eye inflicted by Oliver Queen.

"I think," Tim paused and thought about it, shrugging after a moment. "I think that Bruce is funding Batman. The only logical conclusion is that Batman is somehow coercing him into it, that he's been forced to do it. He had some pain pills that I have to look up. The writing was in much the same hand as the labels on the drugs that are being shipped into Gotham. I have to assume that he's been forcibly addicted to the drug and every time he tries to escape he's beaten or tortured. It would explain why he didn't contact us all that time and why he stayed away so long. It would have taken that long to break Bruce's will."

She growled. Even after all these years Tim was surprised at the strength of her grip as she squeezed his hand. He half expected her to get up to help Tim track down exactly where Batman was so that they could stop him but instead Mrs. Mac peered at him suspiciously. Tim's cheeks went red.

"Did you get any sleep at all?" Mrs. Mac asked.

"Um…"

"Timothy Jackson Drake, you go to bed right this instant!" Mrs. Mac ordered in the thundering voice that still made Tim scramble to obey. "I'll get to work on verifying any patterns we can find and I'll have that drug information translated for you but I expect you to get a minimum of four hours of sleep, young man. You cannot save the world if you don't take care of yourself."

Tim opened his mouth to protest but Mrs. Mac held up one finger before snatching his scribbled note away from him. He sighed and kissed her cheek before leaving her bedroom. Of course she was right. Sleep was mandatory, as was food. It was a good thing that Tim had her there to keep him from overworking himself. He knew perfectly well that he would have kept working on the Batman problem until he collapsed if she wasn't watching over him.

Still, it was so hard to let his worries and plans go. Worse still, the kisses he'd shared with Bruce kept battling in his mind against his horror at the bruises covering Bruce's body. There was no possibility of his falling asleep right away so Tim stripped down and started a shower. Better to get clean anyway after the workout he'd given himself earlier. Once he stepped into the spray Tim remembered all of his bruises from the battle with Batman the previous day. Dismissing them from his mind took a moment's concentration. Unfortunately, dismissing the rest of the worries in his mind took a great deal more work.

"Damn it, Bruce," Tim complained as he leaned against the cool tiles and stared at the foggy glass surrounding the shower. "Do you have any idea what you do to me?"

Bruce's kiss immediately came to mind, followed by the way Bruce had clung to Tim. He frowned as the water cascaded down his body. 

"It wasn't me," Tim whispered. "He said that it wasn't me, that I wasn't the Tim he knew. He… couldn't trust me because of the changes in my behavior."

Tim hit the tiled wall, hating himself intensely for what he'd had to do. There was no guarantee that Bruce would ever accept this new version of Tim. It didn't really matter. One way or the other Tim fully intended to save Bruce from Batman. He groaned, hitting the tile again, then again. He'd been so blind to Bruce's predicament. The love was still there, buried underneath the acting that Bruce had to do to protect himself, just as Tim was still there, buried under his role of Nemesis.

"I will save you," Tim murmured as he gripped himself and stroked exactly the way that Bruce used to when they were in school. "I will. I won't let him keep you, Bruce."

He leaned one shoulder against the tiles, panting as he drove towards an orgasm that was probably the only thing that would allow him to sleep tonight. Tim conjured up memories of the grunts that Bruce would make, the feel of his big strong hands on Tim's hips. The taste of Bruce's mouth tonight mingled with the way he'd tasted back in school. Pretty soon Tim's hips were hitching with every stroke of his hand and his knees shook with the intensity of his desire. All it took was brushing his fingers over his ass for Tim to come so hard that his legs gave out.

"Nngh!" Tim grunted.

Breathing took effort but Tim turned his face up to the warm spray of water, allowing it to rinse his body clean. As expected, the masturbation had cleared most of the mental chatter out of his brain. Tim stood. He turned the water off and dried himself quickly and efficiently. Night clothes would probably be sensible but Tim tumbled into bed naked, unwilling to risk anything setting his mind in motion again. Once he pulled the covers up, Tim sighed.

"Will save you," Tim muttered into the pillow as he relaxed into sleep. "Will."

***

Four days. It had taken Bruce four days to get back on the streets as Batman. Despite his efforts to track down who was stealing technology from WI during his convalescence, Bruce had no new leads on that front. Somehow he had to find out what had happened to the microwave weapon that had somehow gotten 'lost' in shipping to Gotham from its manufacturing plant. 

He'd hoped that getting back on the streets would let him begin to make progress but he was shocked at how much things had changed in those four days. It seemed as though every single police officer and criminal had been pointed directly at him. Every time Bruce attempted to intervene in crime people came out of the woodwork to attack him. After the fifth time that someone nearly shot him in the back of the head Bruce took to the rooftops to try to figure out what had changed.

He didn't want to believe that it was Tim.

That kiss had made him believe that Tim would be there when he woke up the next morning. Of course, that hadn't been true. Even thinking it had been ridiculous. He and Tim had totally different lives now. Bruce had his role as Brucie to play and Tim, well, Tim had to be the shark when he was in public. The only thing that made sense was that Tim had seen through the ruse and realized that Bruce was Batman, but the way he'd been received on the streets since then made him doubt that.

"Taking a break, Batman?" Nemesis asked from the shadows behind Bruce. He all but growled the world 'Batman'.

"Nemesis," Bruce said, turning to face Tim.

His knee objected to the twist, reminding Bruce that he had to be careful with this battle. It was quite obviously going to be a battle. Tim already had one gun in his hand and his other hand rested on the butt of his second gun. Strangely, Tim wasn't pointing the gun at Bruce but it would only take a flick of his wrist to put a bullet straight through Bruce's brain. At this range and with the armor piercing rounds Tim favored as Nemesis it was likely that the bullet actually would penetrate Bruce's cowl.

"I won't let you win," Tim said so low and harsh that it came out as a growl.

"I won't let you destroy Gotham," Bruce countered.

Fortunately for Bruce, his cape was draped around him in such a way as to allow him to pull out several Batarangs. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Tim but he couldn't allow Tim to hurt him. Tim's snort made the shadows on his Nemesis mask shift into something harsh and threatening. The black patches where Tim's eyes should be felt twice as threatening as actually getting to see Tim properly.

"Gotham's safer with me than it has ever been, Batman," Tim snapped. "I control the crime in this town. Haven't you bothered to check? All forms of violent crime have decreased since I took charge."

"You enslaved everyone to support your criminal empire," Bruce countered.

"Don't you dare talk to me about enslaving people!" Tim yelled, so furious so abruptly that Bruce shifted backwards a step. "You have no right to speak on that front, Batman!"

Tim aimed his gun right between Bruce's eyes. As he moved Bruce flicked his cape out of the way and threw two Batarangs. The first missed the gun but it cut into the back of Tim's hand. The second squarely hit the gun, knocking it from Tim's grasp. Even as he lost the first gun, Tim pulled the second one. A third Batarang knocked it from Tim's hand before he could bring it to bear. Both guns skittered off into the shadows of the rooftop.

Disarmed, Tim snarled and charged at Bruce. His blows this time were as vicious and crippling as possible. Bruce blocked with everything he had, working to keep from being driven over the edge of the roof. There weren't any other rooftops within range of his grapple and Bruce was certain that Tim would cut the line if he could.

"Nemesis," Bruce grunted as he took a vicious blow to the gut followed by a nerve strike that landed exactly on a previous injury.

"Shut up and die, you bastard," Tim snarled. "I won't let you keep him!"

Tim's anger blended with the desperate tenderness of his voice when he'd tucked Bruce in the other night. Bruce tumbled backwards to get a little space, stopping and staring at Tim with his arms in a defensive pose. The sheer rage on Tim's face couldn't be hidden by the Nemesis mask. It showed in the shadows across the mask and in Tim's posture.

"You think..." Bruce started and then stopped.

He couldn't help but laugh even though it was the worst thing he could possibly do at this point. Tim's anger peaked and then shifted into what looked like curiosity. Tim moved into a more defensive stance though it was one that could turn aggressive at a moment's notice. As Bruce's laughter died down into quiet chuckles Tim frowned.

"He owns me," Bruce said just loudly enough for Tim to hear him. Who knew how many minions he had in the area. "I could never own him, Nemesis."

"And the drugs?" Tim asked, nearly as quietly but with far more hostility. "I recognized the handwriting on them, Batman."

"From where?" Bruce asked, horrified at the thought of Ra's al Ghul and his League of Shadows infiltrating Gotham. "They should be destroyed! I thought... they should be dead." 

This time Tim's curiosity was blatant. He straightened up to stare at Bruce as if he was trying to see straight through the cowl. Bruce did the same, wishing with all his heart that Tim would take off the Nemesis mask so that they could talk properly. After a moment Tim glanced away from Bruce, raising one hand and flicking it twice. Armed men dressed in black shifted out of the darkness on all the neighboring rooftops, slipping away into the night. Each of them was armed with a sniper rifle.

Bruce let out a long slow breath. This was a trap, had been a trap. Tim had driven him here so that they could have one last confrontation before Tim murdered him. When Tim turned back to Bruce his expression was so still that his Nemesis mask was perfectly black, revealing nothing. Hopefully his cowl was more expressive than that mask because Bruce truly needed to convince Tim to tell him where he'd seen Ra's' handwriting.

"Who are they?" Tim asked. "The ones with that handwriting."

"They're called the League of Shadows," Bruce replied. "They were led by a man called Ra's al Ghul who is purported to be immortal. He isn't. I killed him and burned his house down in Tibet before coming to Gotham. He had a second in command named Henry Ducard. I... he was a friend. I saved his life though it might not have been wise."

"You shouldn't have," Tim said in a perfectly cold tone of voice. "He's one of my contacts. I hadn't thought that I was so close to the head of the organization."

"What are they doing, Nemesis?" Bruce asked, pleaded, all but begged. "I broke with them because they intended to completely destroy Gotham. Thousands of people were going to die and I would not be a part of that."

Tim stared at him, something like awe on his face. Rather than let Tim think about it, think of reasons not to tell Bruce, he walked closer. As he did so he made sure to allow himself to limp slightly. The injury to his knee was one of the few ways that he could discretely tell Tim his identity right now. As soon as Bruce limped Tim jerked and started cursing reverently. He kept cursing as Bruce moved close enough that they could have kissed if it weren't for Tim's mask and Bruce's cowl.

"He owns you," Tim breathed.

"Just as you are not the true face, Nemesis," Bruce murmured to him. "We're nothing but masks hiding the truth from people who would hurt us."

This time it was Tim who laughed, the same free laugh from their days together at Exeter. He shook his head as he laughed, a grin visible even with the Nemesis mask obscuring his features. Once the laughter died Tim wrapped one hand around Bruce's wrist, squeezing just right to make the bruise there twinge. Bruce allowed himself the wince.

"Ducard will come to Gotham," Bruce said. "He will bring the League of Shadows, all of his assassins."

"We'll stop him," Tim replied. "But we'll need to discuss methodology. Gotham is mine and I won't allow someone else to destroy her."

"Agreed," Bruce said. "Though I somewhat object to your laying claim to my city."

Bruce grinned at the same time that Tim grinned. As Tim released his wrist they stepped apart. There was a great deal to discuss but this was most certainly not the time or place to do it. Tim cocked his head before tapping his ear twice. He turned and walked away, reclaiming his guns from the spots where they'd landed.

"Dinner," Tim announced. "Tomorrow. My place."

"Understood," Bruce replied.

Tim went down the fire escape as smoothly as if he'd been born for the rooftops of Gotham. Perhaps he had, just as Bruce had. Both of them had certainly trained to be what they were now. Bruce smiled and took a deep breath only to let it out slowly. Perhaps this would work out after all. Now all he had to do was make it back to the cave without the police, who certainly hadn't gotten any orders to leave him alone, attempting to arrest him.

***

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Tim?" Mrs. Mac asked as she laid out dinner on the kitchen table. "After everything we've discovered."

"I'm... reasonably certain we misinterpreted it, Mrs. Mac," Tim said. He fussed with the silverware, making sure that every piece was perfectly spaced and aligned.

"Tim."

He looked up from his straightening to meet Mrs. Mac's eyes. She looked so worried about him, as though she was half a second away from scolding him but only because he was being stupid. Honestly, it probably did look stupid from the outside but Tim knew that this was right. He knew. Batman's voice as he spoke of the League of Shadows had been Bruce's voice. No efforts to disguise it, no growls, nothing other than Bruce Wayne speaking from behind the mask that he'd chosen, just as Tim had chosen the Nemesis mask.

"You had to be there," Tim murmured. "It will be all right."

"I'll have the handgun if anything goes wrong," Mrs. Mac said. "You just holler, Timothy Jackson Drake. You know that I won't allow you to be hurt."

"I know," Tim said.

The hug was a surprise and expected at the same time. Tim never expected Mrs. Mac's hugs, even after all this time, but it was exactly the sort of thing that she felt hugs were mandatory for. They stepped apart when someone, Bruce, knocked on the back door. Mrs. Mac straightened up, brushed her apron down with two firm passes of her hands and stomped over to swing the door open as Bruce's hand descended to knock again.

"You be good to my boy, Bruce Thomas Wayne," Mrs. Mac snapped. "You're not too old to be spanked if you don't and I do my spanking with lethal weapons these days."

"Ah, yes ma'am," Bruce said as he cautiously stepped inside. "Alfred sent cookies. And I ah, brought wine."

He held out a small cloth bag that had a bottle of wine poking out of it. Mrs. Mac took it from Bruce, sniffing as if it was a poor excuse for a welcome gift. She stomped over to the stove, pretending that she couldn't see and hear everything that they said. Tim chuckled as he took Bruce's coat and hung it on the hooks next to the kitchen door. From the look in Bruce's eyes, he wasn't entirely certain that it was safe for him to be here.

"You know she's always worried about me," Tim murmured to him.

"Alfred worries about me but he doesn't carry a revolver," Bruce replied in a low voice that wouldn't carry to Mrs. Mac's ears.

"No, he has a shotgun," Tim countered with a grin that made Bruce start laughing.

The laughter seemed to do more to relax Mrs. Mac than anything else. She served them dinner, including the wine, before leaving them alone in the small kitchen. It wasn't the big kitchen that his parents had used for parties. This was the servant's kitchen. It was telling that Bruce had come here rather than go to the front door or anywhere else in the house.

"How's the knee?" Tim asked as they finished their lasagna and started on the tiramisu Mrs. Mac had made.

"Sore," Bruce replied, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "That trap was... a bit painful to get out of."

"I'd say that I was sorry but that would be a lie," Tim said. "You were trying to destroy my operation, after all."

"What's the point?" Bruce asked, far less hostile than he should have been given how abrupt the question was.

"Someone, I assume that it's the League you told me of, has been shipping hallucinogenic drugs into Gotham," Tim explained. "Dr. Crane had been dosing the water supply so that everyone would be affected. However, it's only effective as a gas so I wasn't sure what the goal was."

Bruce stiffened, reaching into his pocket to pull out a report on a microwave weapon that Wayne Industries had apparently been building. "This was stolen from one of our ships. It's designed to turn any water supply into gas."

"When was it stolen?" Tim asked.

"Last night, during our battle," Bruce explained. "Ducard may not have set us against each other but he wouldn't hesitate to use our battles. He's quite determined to destroy Gotham, Tim."

Tim frowned at the specs of the weapon, nodding once before he passed it back to Bruce. "I… may have blocked him already."

Bruce's surprised look made Tim smile so grimly that Bruce reached out to cup Tim's elbow with one hand. He got a small laugh in return, making Bruce's heart skip a beat in delight. Despite the laugh, Tim pulled his elbow out of Bruce's hand as he gestured at the files Bruce held.

"The drug that forms your gas has been shipped into Gotham for over a year and a half, Bruce," Tim explained. "I figured out what it was designed to do and neutralized the previous distributor by exposing him to a dose of his own gas but the supply continued. I've spent the time since then working to root out whoever is distributing it here."

"How much is in the water system?" Bruce asked, the file slowly crumpling as his hand curled into a fist.

"Perhaps enough to cause a couple seconds of terror in those exposed to it," Tim sighed, "but not enough for a lasting effect. They continue to ship it in, now through my organization, but we've been carefully diluting it so that it cannot be effectively used as a weapon against Gotham."

That was a relief though not as much as it should have been. Bruce had to wonder whether this drug was related to the flower that he'd been exposed to while training with Ducard in Tibet but that was an issue to address another time. There were other things to consider at this point in time.

"My birthday party is tomorrow," Bruce murmured. "You should be there. I want you there."

"We should come down together, Bruce," Tim said. He laughed quietly. "Really now. Ducard wants Gotham, yes? Well, he knows that he has to go through you. I'm supposed to be on his side, if a bit over-controlling of the methodology of achieving his goals. If you're my lover, my new pet, then perhaps Ducard will back off."

"He won't buy that," Bruce protested but his expression was thoughtful as if he was assessing the idea and finding a great deal to approve of.

"Really?" Tim asked with his shark smile. "People have already been told that we used to be close, Bruce. No one will question my reclaiming what's mine."

It took a moment before Bruce nodded but he did. The laughter in his eyes made Tim grin. He wasn't at all surprised when Bruce reached out and tugged Tim into his lap. After so long apart, it shouldn't feel half this natural to be in Bruce's arms again. Tim kissed him, capturing Bruce's lips as Bruce had captured his heart all those years ago. He tasted of cheese and sweet chocolate with a hint of the wine that Bruce had brought for dinner. Bruce chased Tim's tongue around his mouth until the dinner faded and all that was left of Bruce's unique flavor.

"I missed you so much," Tim whispered.

"Missed you too," Bruce said, the words a pained moan that matched the grip of his arms around Tim's back. "You were so different when I got back that I had no idea what to do. I planned for everything except for you changing."

They kissed again, this time with Bruce's hands tugging at Tim's shirt, freeing it from his pants so that he could run his hands over Tim's ribcage. Tim returned the favor by pulling Bruce's tie free and then somehow wrenching the buttons of his shirt open. At least one button ended up on the floor but Tim couldn't care less.

All that mattered was that Bruce was okay. He was there, in Tim's arms. The bruises and cuts were from abuse. Now that Tim was thinking more clearly he realized that most of those bruises were things that he'd inflicted on Bruce. From the way Bruce laughed against his lips his incoherent muttered apology was understood and appreciated, if unnecessary. Tim found Bruce's belt, his hands fumbling with it in a desperate effort to get the thing open so that he could get to the hard length hiding underneath Bruce's pants.

"Oh my Lord!"

Tim started so badly that he fell off Bruce's lap, hitting his head against the edge of the table on the way. Bruce tried to catch him, only to smack his chin against the table when Tim pulled him down to the floor with him. They stared at the doorway where Mrs. Mac stood, Tim feeling so much like his teenaged self that he could hardly believe that he and Bruce were adults. Mrs. Mac sighed and put her hands on her hips.

"You two go up to bed and for heaven's sake, lock the door," Mrs. Mac declared. "I swear, carrying on in the kitchen. What is the world coming to? Go on. Shoo!"

Bruce scrambled to his feet, offering a hand to Tim. He took it gratefully. To Tim's amusement, Bruce was blushing as badly as Tim was. Mrs. Mac stepped to the side, one hand imperiously raised to point towards the stairs. Tim caught Bruce's hand as they passed her. She swatted both of their butts, making Bruce start and Tim laugh quietly.

The stairs didn't seem as quiet and lonely as they normally were. Of course, Bruce stopped him on the landing for more kisses, brief ones this time. By the time they made it to the master bedroom Bruce's belt was open and Tim was carrying his pants rather than wearing them. They dropped their clothes on the floor as they made their way to the bed together.

"I missed you," Tim moaned as Bruce draped himself on top of Tim to align their cocks in his hand.

"Thought of you so many times," Bruce grunted as he thrust against Tim. "So many times!"

They rocked their hips in unison, the lube allowing them to slide together in Bruce's hand. His grip was stronger than it had been years ago and the callouses on his fingers added a new dimension that had Tim panting entirely too quickly. There was no way that this could last, not this time, not after so long apart. Tim clung to Bruce's shoulders, wrapped one leg around Bruce's back. Entirely too soon Bruce started making the grunt that meant that he was on the edge of coming. Tim stared up at him, watching every expression that flitted across Bruce's face. His eyes were screwed shut and he mouthed words that Tim didn't recognize anymore. The first jerk of Bruce's cock as he came made Tim shout and claw Bruce's shoulders. Three more thrusts on Tim's side pushed him over the edge too.

"Oh God, I needed that," Tim panted as Bruce collapsed on top of him.

"Mmmgh," Bruce agreed against Tim's neck.

He tried to roll off but Tim held him there, keeping their bodies pressed together as if they'd never let each other go. This had always been Tim's favorite part of sex, being held and comforted. Bruce chuckled as he wrapped his arms around Tim.

"Sticky," Bruce murmured.

"It can wait," Tim replied as he always had, always would.

"For the next round?" Bruce asked, pulling back just enough that Tim could see his eyes. He looked as nervous as their first time but also hopeful.

"There will always be a next time for us," Tim whispered. "Always."

***

Bruce smiled at the guests at his party, Tim at his elbow. He suspected that the contrast between Brucie's dim-witted but amiable expression with Tim's 'going to eat you' shark smile was what made everyone pale and end the conversation as quickly as possible. As a party, Bruce's birthday bash was going to be an utter flop. By the time they'd made two circuits of the ballroom practically everyone had left muttering excuses about places to go and things to do. Those last few people who had survived the circuits slipped away as soon as Tim turned his back. Tim had nodded approvingly every time someone ran away from them, always with on hand possessively on Bruce's back or arm.

"Interesting. I would not have expected this."

Bruce turned slowly despite the way his heart began to pound. He could only be grateful that all the guests were now gone. Somehow, he'd suspected that this party would turn into a problem. With everything that Tim had told him last night after their third round of sex, Bruce had had to believe that the League would descend on him soon. 

It had, or more accurately, Henry Ducard had descended on Bruce. Ducard smiled at Bruce as he slowly sauntered across the empty ballroom, his lips twisted into his version of a shark's smile. Somehow it wasn't half as impressive as Tim's version. Bruce watched, outwardly calm but inwardly worried as more and more of Ducard's men entered the room and surrounded them. There shouldn't be so many of them. He'd thought that he'd killed ar more in the fire than this.

Tim growled so low under his breath that Bruce barely heard it, much less anyone else in the room. Nonetheless, Ducard seemed to realize that Tim wasn't happy to see him there.

"We were to meet elsewhere, Henry," Tim snapped at Ducard.

"He knows?" Ducard asked, jerking his chin at Bruce. "About you, your other face?"

"You underestimate our history," Tim replied with enough threat in his voice that Ducard's people shifted into ready positions behind him. "And what I will do to keep him."

"I knew as soon as I saw Nemesis that it was Tim," Bruce commented as if they were discussing a rather bland play instead of Tim's criminal empire.

The tone made Ducard frown for a moment, though the expression was only the faintest hint of his brows tightening. He looked at Bruce, scanning for a lie that didn't exist, before turning back to Tim who radiated fury and protectiveness. Something about Tim's posture seemed to amuse Ducard. Bruce eased back half a step, well aware that laughing at Tim when he was in one of these moods was one of the quickest ways to set his temper off in the worst ways possible.

"He is a most intractable pet, Nemesis," Ducard warned.

"I know," Tim said, the smile shifting to predatory. "I like it that way. That is not the issue here. Gotham is mine. I do not appreciate your efforts to destroy it."

"Gotham is corrupt," Ducard countered.

"Of course it is," Tim replied. "I've spent considerable time and effort ensuring that it is as corrupt as humanly possible."

Bruce smiled as Ducard's eyes slid towards him. Their discussions during Bruce's training with the League had revolved around removing corruption, cutting it out like a surgeon cut a cancer out of a patient's body. It was obvious that Ducard expected Bruce to object to Tim's plans but, having heard them in great detail from Tim last night, Bruce had no objections. Tim, unlike the League, had no intention of killing the majority of the population of the city.

"Evil must be removed from society," Ducard began only to stiffen as Tim waved one hand at him.

"Yes, yes, as a surgeon might cut a cancer from a body," Tim countered impatiently. "What plagues Gotham is not a cancer, Henry. It is a persistent weakening of public morals, a failure to ensure that those who meet certain standards of behavior are punished for their lapses. Killing large quantities of people will do nothing to ensure that Gotham improves. We have discussed this many times, granted in our letters rather than face to face, but you know my views on the issue."

"You truly believe that you can remove the head of the hydra?" Ducard asked as if amused by the thought.

"Oh no," Tim said in his most shark-like voice. "I will not remove the head of the hydra, Henry. I will become the hydra itself. All crime will be carried out at my command, according to my requirements. All levels of Gotham society will follow my rules. What Gotham needs is not a purge but a strong ruler who rewards those who behave as they should and who punishes those who transgress."

When all Bruce did during Tim's little monologue was smile and station himself at Tim's shoulder, just out of range of Tim's guns, Ducard frowned in earnest. His shoulders tightened in the way they always did when Ducard was thinking of attacking and holding himself back. Bruce allowed his arms to relax, his stance to center over the balls of his feet. If Ducard did attack his men would follow suit and Bruce would not be unprepared for it.

"I find myself curious how you managed to convince him to support you," Ducard said to Tim though he kept his eyes firmly on Bruce.

"It wasn't difficult," Tim said, his posture loosening as he prepared for attack as well. "Bruce plays a role in my plans, a very important role."

"Honesty does help, as well," Bruce commented. "He explained quite thoroughly what he wanted instead of hiding behind lies and twisted truths."

"Touché," Ducard allowed with a mock-gracious nod of his head. He turned back to Tim, focusing completely on him. "You have blocked my efforts to drug the water system in Gotham. This is not the action of an ally."

"Attempting to destroy the entire territory of someone you're working with is not the action of an ally either," Tim countered. "Bruce has informed me of your goals. I approve of them as you very well know. Gotham needs to be cleansed of its corruption, certainly. Your mistake is acting too quickly. My plans will ensure that Gotham is purged of the majority of its crime within the next ten years."

Ducard actually showed a bit of shock as he studied Tim, his jaw dropping a millimeter or so before he snapped his mouth shut again. He turned and stared at Bruce who nodded agreement. The snort was no surprise but the assessing look that Ducard gave Tim was. Bruce had seen Ducard use that look before but it had been aimed at Bruce. Seeing it aimed at Tim made Bruce glower at his former friend.

"Mine," Bruce growled.

"My apologies," Ducard laughed as he eyed Bruce in the same way. "I have always been… fascinated by intelligence."

"Mine!" Bruce and Tim growled at the same time.

"I am curious as to how this partnership shall play out when you have positioned yourself opposite to each other in your other identities," Ducard said with a truly gracious nod this time.

"That's part of the plan," Tim chuckled even though his expression was anything but welcoming. "I do not trust you anymore, Henry. I do not trust the League of Shadows. I do not want you in my city given how you attempt to undermine my efforts and turn my allies into enemies."

Ducard's head went back at that but Bruce stood firm at Tim's side, glaring him down. After a moment Ducard laughed. He stepped backwards, waving at his men to put their weapons away. Bruce tensed, not at all pleased that Ducard wasn't following the pattern that they had expected him to. Unpredictable behavior was a problem, especially when it came to a group like the League of Shadows.

"Very well, Timothy," Ducard said as he sauntered towards the door. "You have your ten years. If, after that time, Gotham has not improved dramatically we will return and then we will not be put off by your plans and reassurances."

Everything in Bruce screamed that this was a trick, that Ducard was only withdrawing so that he could attack when they weren't ready for him. As Ducard and his men retreated from the manor, Tim followed to make sure that he and his men actually departed. Bruce went after them, moving more slowly so that he could find and remove the many bugs that Ducard's people had left scattered behind them. Tomorrow, after he and Tim had made sure that the League had actually left Gotham (not that he expected it to happen), he would have to spend some time to make sure that all of the bugs were truly removed. There was no way that Bruce was going to allow Ducard to spy on him in his own home. 

Sweeping the manor to ensure that no one remained after Ducard drove off took nearly na hour and a half. All through the sweep Bruce found more bugs and cameras. Once they had returned to Alfred's kitchen, Bruce poured the bugs into Tim's hand. He smiled at the way Tim growled as he stared out the window after the departed vehicles. They seemed too few to hold all of the men Ducard had brought with him though Bruce was certain some had left on foot rather than by car.

"We're going to be watched," Bruce murmured.

"I know," Tim agreed. "He won't give us ten years. We'll be lucky to get one or two years."

"We can handle it," Bruce said as he put one hand on Tim's shoulder.

"We'll need allies, both of us," Tim said with a bright smile that reminded Bruce of the boy he'd met all those years ago.

"We'll find them. We'll find all the allies we need and we'll stop the League from hurting anyone in Gotham. Together we can handle anything, Tim."

+++++

"Hmmm, well that went as planned," Tim said.

Bruce's arms were warm around his waist. The battle the previous evening had gone exactly as they'd wanted. Between the two of them they'd managed to have a highly dramatic minor war but the property and personnel damage had been kept to a minimum. On the TV, the news reporters were chattering about Batman and Nemesis, calling them arch-enemies while speculating what it would mean for Gotham City.

Getting the League of Shadows out of Gotham was turning out to be a much more difficult project than Tim had initially hoped. Ducard himself was gone, returned to his base in Tibet. His men, however, had infiltrated so many levels of the government and underworld that they were going to have to spend years getting rid of them. Hopefully Tim wouldn't have to kill the majority of them. Bruce's unhappiness with lethal force meant enough to Tim that he was revising his procedures somewhat. He'd never relied on killing but there were things he could do to minimize the deaths that did inevitably have to occur.

"I wonder whether that reporter is working for Ra's," Bruce said of Vicky Vale. "She's certainly hitting the 'Batman is aiming to be the new Nemesis' drum hard."

"No, actually, she's one of the few honest reporters in the city," Tim chuckled. "I tried to enlist her and failed utterly. I'll have to get copies of the stories she ran on me after my recruitment effort. You'll find them quite amusing, I think."

Mrs. Mac appeared at the doorway with Alfred behind her. She had a tray full of food while Alfred had their wine for dinner. Tim couldn't help but worry that between the two of them they were going to take over the world. Alfred and Mrs. Mac had taken to each other so completely and instantly that it was as though they'd been friends their entire lives. If it weren't for Bruce's reassurances that Alfred had a quiet romance going on with the doctor at the free clinic, Leslie Thompkins, Tim would have been making plans for a wedding.

"You boys need to eat," Mrs. Mac said with a stern look at their continued cuddling on the couch. "Come on now. You're not eating on the couch."

"Most certainly not," Alfred agreed.

His stiff little sniff of disapproval made Bruce sigh as he let Tim go. Dinner was simple, hearty stew with Alfred's excellent biscuits and Mrs. Mac's incredible apple cobbler for dessert. 

By the time they were done eating it was time to get ready to go to the night's party. Everyone in the city was quite aware of their romance by now, not that the news media were reporting it. The highest levels of society could talk about little else but Tim's control over the news media ensured that few reporters would touch the story. No one had commented yet but there had been a marked decrease in the number of women hitting on Brucie. Still, it was always good to reinforce that Bruce was no longer on the market with a proper show of possessiveness.

"We should do something random," Bruce commented as they headed upstairs to get dressed for the night. "Something that Brucie would have talked you into."

"There's a circus coming to town next week," Tim said, nodding his agreement. "I've got some contacts there who are working on smuggling that want to try and use the circus as a front despite my warning not to do it. I need to make sure that they haven't been compromised by the League. We can always go see the circus instead of my meeting them away from there."

Bruce's happy smile was barely a twitch of his lips but his eyes were bright enough that Tim caught his wrist and pulled him to a stop. This wasn't how he'd pictured the future when they'd talked about fighting crime as teenagers. It wasn't how he'd thought things would go once Bruce left on his trip. More importantly, it wasn't anything at all like the loneliness and pain he'd expected once Bruce was declared dead.

The kiss was gentle and chaste out of respect for the party they had to go to and for Mrs. Mac and Alfred's sensibilities. Tim smiled as he ran one thumb over Bruce's jaw, feeling stubble already forming. Bruce kissed the palm of his hand before wrapping one large hand around Tim's hip.

"Let's go," Bruce murmured. "We've got things to do."

"Together," Tim whispered around the lump in his throat.

"Always," Bruce agreed.

The End


End file.
